


Look What The Cat Dragged In

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alpine - Freeform, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes has a sweet tooth, Bucky Barnes is a Cat Lover, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Domestic Fluff, Just Add Kittens, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27084847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: The Winter Soldier was looming over him, dressed in full combat gear and hung all about with weapons. Blood was seeping out of a wound on his arm and there was a smear of it down his cheek that was starting to flake off as it dried. He was staring at Clint with a jaw-clenchingly intense glare and Clint felt every cell in his body freeze up under his scrutiny, expecting pain of some kind.Instead, the Winter Soldier held a fist out containing Clint’s hearing aids and then, once he’d tucked them in pretty much on autopilot, thrust a cat in Clint’s face and growled out, “Tell me about this kitten,” like he was demanding the passwords to a nuclear weapon.Somehow Clint ends up co-owning a kitten with the Winter Soldier.
Relationships: Alpine & James "Bucky" Barnes, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 198
Kudos: 774





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kangofu_CB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/gifts).



> For CB, who prompted the original idea and who deserves good things.
> 
> Huge thanks to Steph for betaing and coming up with the title.

It was so late that it was almost early. Bucky kept the keys clutched tight in his hand, easing the door of the building open to avoid making any noise. He shut it just as silently behind him then started up the stairs, ignoring the elevator and all its clanking noises.

He kept one hand clamped over the wound on his bicep, as much to keep the blood from dripping and leaving a trail as to keep pressure on it. When he reached the fifth floor, he ghosted down the hallway without flicking on the light, reaching the second door on the left and pausing for a moment to listen through it.

There was silence on the other side, but he already knew the apartment was occupied. He’d carried out reconnaissance before entering the building, just like he had every time he’d been here other than the first time. From the roof across the street he’d seen the shuttered curtains in the bedroom and, more tellingly, the occupied dog bed in the corner of the lounge.

That wouldn’t be a problem though. He’d done this before when the owner was home without being caught, creeping in and out like the ghost Hydra had made him into.

He eased the key into the lock and carefully opened the door, knowing exactly when to stop to prevent the hinges from squeaking. He slipped inside, then shut the door again behind him and just stood in the darkness of the flat for a moment, letting out a sigh of relief and feeling the tension roll off his shoulders.

He shouldn’t let his guard down so completely when he was here but it was hard not to, not when it was the first safe place he’d had to retreat to for decades.

The first time he’d come here, he’d been battered and confused, only out of Hydra’s control for a couple of months and still deeply into the mindset that they’d programmed into him. 

He hadn’t expected to meet a SHIELD agent while wiping out a Hydra base, much less one who’d settled in to fight at his side with barely more than a wide-eyed look and a mumble of, “Wow, okay, well, I guess the enemy of my enemy and all that.”

After the base had been nothing more than a burning ruin, the agent had turned to Bucky with a wide grin and held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Hawkeye. Good working with you.”

Bucky had still felt more puppet than man back then, and it had taken him a few moments to remember the correct response. Hawkeye had just kept holding his hand out, smile fixed on his face, until Bucky had taken it and given it a shake.

He hadn’t known how to introduce himself back then, so many names and designations rattling around his head and none that properly felt like him, so he hadn’t said anything.

Hawkeye’s eyes had dropped to where Bucky had been stabbed in the shoulder, and then further down to the slash on his thigh that had ripped through his pants as well as his skin. “You got somewhere to go to be patched up?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky had growled, taking a step away, because _being patched up_ meant doctors prodding at him and leaving a paper trail and a whole bunch of other stuff he had no interest in.

“Okay, you’re really not,” Hawkeye had said. “How about this: we’re not that far out from my place in Brooklyn, nice quiet apartment where no one except me ever goes. I’ve got a lot of medical supplies there. Come with me, let me patch you up, maybe have some coffee and something to eat, then you can head off into the wind again.”

Bucky shouldn’t have been tempted by the offer. Even now he knew, deep down, that he shouldn’t be coming to the apartment so often just for a sliver of comfort and familiarity. He was built to work alone, and had been even more so back then, when so much of the Winter Soldier was still hanging around in his head. He should have been fine to find his own place to hole up and nurse his wounds for just long enough to be ready to attack the next base on his list.

“Well, as long as you don’t mind dogs,” Hawkeye had added. “But he’s lazy and friendly, he’ll probably just try and get some pizza out of you, then wander off and go to sleep once he realises you haven’t got any. Nothing to worry about.”

For some reason that had been the thing that made Bucky nod his head and then follow Hawkeye to his car, and from there to an apartment building in Bed-Stuy. Hawkeye had introduced him to his dog, made him coffee, then patched up his injuries with easy competency. He’d even let him use his shower, and had a sandwich waiting for him when he got out.

“Look,” he’d said as Bucky had finished eating, “I get the feeling you’re not ready to hear this yet, but I’ve gotta say it, sorry man. Steve is desperate to find you, if you go to him he’d be overjoyed, give you all the help you need-”

“I don’t need any help,” Bucky had interrupted, setting down his plate and standing up. It had been the first sign that Hawkeye had known who he was, but he hadn’t been surprised by it. Every SHIELD agent left loyal, and definitely all those who were Hydra, would have known who the assassin with the metal arm truly was by then.

“Oh sure,” Hawkeye had said, rolling his eyes. “You’re totally fine running around on your own taking out Hydra bases, and occasionally getting shot. You and Steve have a lot in common, you know.”

“It needs to be done,” Bucky had insisted, ignoring the mention of Steve. It was the mission he’d set for himself, the first thing he’d chosen for himself in decades, and he wasn’t going to stop until he’d wiped Hydra off the face of the map. That was still just as true now, months later.

Hawkeye had stood up as well, spreading his hands out as if that could make him look nonthreatening when he had shoulders that wide. “Hey, no, okay, no one’s saying it doesn’t. Look, Steve’s my friend, and he’s going nuts looking for you, I had to say something. But if you’re not ready yet, that’s cool, too. Just know it’s there when you need it.”

Bucky hadn’t had anything to say to that, so he’d just nodded jerkily and then started to gather up his stuff so he could get out of there.

“And so am I,” Hawkeye had added. “Anything you need man, even if it’s being patched up again, or just a place to spend the night. I’m guessing you don’t have a place of your own anywhere yet. In fact-” He’d darted away, opening a kitchen drawer and rummaging through until he’d pulled out a set of keys. “I’m not here all that often,” he’d said. “Between missions and being at the Tower for Avengers stuff, it’s often empty for weeks at a time. You should feel free to come by if you need a place to crash.”

He’d held out the keys and Bucky had just stared at them. He’d had no idea what to do, and the urge to flee had risen up in his chest while he’d stalled, frozen still.

“Promise I won’t tell Steve,” Hawkeye had added. “I’m not gonna force you to do anything you’re not ready for.”

Bucky had glanced up from the keys to look at his face and seen such unbearable kindness on it, hidden behind a cheerful smile, that it’d felt like he’d choke on the emotions rising up.

It had been too much. He’d grabbed the keys from Hawkeye’s hand, and fled out of the apartment, into the night.

He’d told himself that he’d never go back, but even then he’d known it was a lie. Even if he hadn’t had the keys, he had a feeling he’d have come back.

There was a pitter-patter of paws across the floor and Bucky sank into a crouch automatically, opening his arms so Lucky could step into them, sniffing at Bucky’s neck for a moment before licking him in greeting.

“Hey, Lucky,” said Bucky as softly as he could. Hawkeye would almost certainly have his hearing aids out while he slept, but Bucky had got too far into the habit of being careful to risk it. He needed to see for certain that Hawkeye wasn’t going to wake up while Bucky quietly used his shower, patched himself up, petted his dog and then left again.

He hadn’t spoken to Hawkeye since that first conversation, although this wasn’t the first time he’d come here to find Hawkeye in residence. He always waited until he was asleep and then crept around him, not wanting to get drawn into another conversation about Steve or, worse, be told that Hawkeye had changed his mind and wanted his keys back.

Hawkeye hadn’t been wrong about how often the place was empty, though. Mostly when Bucky got here it was to silence and a thin layer of dust, and he was able to take his time without worrying about waking anyone up. In some ways that was better, but there was something about inhabiting the same space as someone else, someone he sort of knew and who had given him permission to be there, that made his mind settle into a kind of calm he didn’t have much experience with.

Besides, it also meant he got to pet Lucky.

He gave Lucky a final stroke over his ears then stood back up, wincing at the ache of exhaustion. He’d been hoping to grab a couple of hours of sleep on the sofa before he left but if Hawkeye was here, he couldn’t risk it.

He crept up the stairs to the mezzanine Hawkeye used as a bedroom, moving silently in the shadows, and then let out a quiet sigh of relief when he saw Hawkeye’s hearing aids on the nightstand, blinking faintly red as they charged. He didn’t need to worry about the noise of the shower waking him.

Bucky was still as quiet as possible opening the bathroom door and flicking on the light, but it was more habit than anything else. He glanced back at the bed, taking in the faint shape of Hawkeye’s sprawled figure and the gleam of the bathroom light on his skin where the sheet was pushed down to his waist.

There was a tiny movement from the end of the bed and Bucky stilled himself just in case Hawkeye was waking up, and then stared as he realised what he was seeing.

A kitten had been curled up in a ball at the foot of the bed, but had clearly been woken up by Bucky and was now stretching out its tiny paws and letting out a silent yawn.

A flood of warmth broke through Bucky’s chest as he just stared at the tiny ball of fluff. He’d never felt anything like this almost desperate, soft yearning choking up in his lungs. He wanted to scoop the kitten up and squish it against his chest. He wanted to stroke over its fur until it was purring with satisfaction. He wanted to stare for hours, taking in every tiny detail of its every movement. 

He just watched as it slowly found its way to its feet, looked around the room for a moment, then stared right at Bucky and opened its mouth to let out a loud, plaintive meow.

He drew in a sharp breath and abandoned the bathroom to step towards it. “Sssh,” he hushed it. “It’s okay. I’m a friend.”

He hadn’t been anyone’s friend since 1944, and if you’d asked him ten minutes ago he’d have said he didn’t know how to be anything close to it, but for this kitten he could be anything it needed. He hesitantly stretched out his hand, stroking gentle fingers over its tiny head, and it meowed at him again, then pressed its head up into his touch.

Every last splinter of ice from Hydra’s cryogenic chamber was melting in Bucky’s chest. He glanced at Hawkeye’s sleeping form again then plucked up all his courage and scooped the kitten up, cradling it between his hands and cuddling it in close to his chest.

Seeing his metal hand holding something so soft and delicate made something break open inside him and he had to pause and take a couple of deep breaths to settle all the feelings. The kitten meowed again, more quietly, then reached out with a paw to bat at his chest.

Bucky couldn’t take his eyes off it as he carefully, tentatively, stroked over its fur again, lifting it higher to rest against his shoulder so he could run his hand down its back. The kitten pressed its nose into the corner of his neck, rubbing its face against his skin, and Bucky had to force himself to take a breath, and then another, as he kept stroking it.

“You’re so precious,” he murmured. “Such a good kitty.” 

The kitten set its paws on his shoulder then reached up to bat at his hair. It managed to catch a lock and immediately set to chew on it while Bucky just stared and ignored the faint, dull pain where it pulled at his scalp.

“Where did you come from?”

Hawkeye’s lifestyle was very clearly not set up to allow for owning a cat. He only seemed to manage with Lucky because he shared him with a friend, so he had somewhere to leave him when he disappeared on a mission for a few weeks at a time. What was he going to do with a kitten when he was off fighting bad guys?

For several delusional moments, Bucky imagined taking the kitten away with him and taking care of it himself, but if there wasn’t a space for a kitten in Hawkeye’s life, there was even less of one in Bucky’s. Most nights he slept in abandoned buildings or the trashiest motel he could find, and he spent his days moving around the country taking out Hydra bases.

He didn’t even know the first thing about taking care of an animal, especially not one as young and vulnerable as this kitten. He didn’t know what kind of food it should be getting, if it needed any other care, hell, he didn’t even know its name.

Or its gender, come to that.

The kitten yanked at his hair again, hard enough to make Bucky wince and he reached up to gently untangle it from its mouth. “That’s enough of that,” he said softly, and lifted it away from his shoulder so he could look at it, angling himself so the light from the bathroom fell fully on it. It was pure white all over with not a single mark on its fur, and when he gently tilted it back to look at its belly, he found it was a female.

“Hello, such a pretty girl,” he said, righting the cat as she started to vocally complain, and tucking her back against his chest for another stroke that settled her down. She batted at the handle of one of the knives tucked into the webbing criss-crossing Bucky’s combat armour.

“Where did you come from?” Bucky wondered again and glanced back at the bed, where the answer to all his questions was still sprawled out, snoring faintly and completely oblivious to the assassin petting his cat.

****

Clint was deep in a lovely dream of scantily-clad women bearing pizza when he got shaken roughly awake. He was reaching for a weapon even before his eyes blinked open, then paused in surprise at the sight that met him.

The Winter Soldier was looming over him, dressed in full combat gear and hung all about with weapons. Blood was seeping out of a wound on his arm and there was a smear of it down his cheek that was starting to flake off as it dried. He was staring at Clint with a jaw-clenchingly intense glare and Clint felt every cell in his body freeze up under his scrutiny, expecting pain of some kind.

Instead, the Winter Soldier held a fist out containing Clint’s hearing aids and then, once he’d tucked them in pretty much on autopilot, thrust a cat in Clint’s face and growled out, “Tell me about this kitten,” like he was demanding the passwords to a nuclear weapon.

Clint just blinked at him, trying to bring his brain online enough to work out what the fuck was going on. The kitten meowed unhappily at the manhandling and the Winter Soldier pulled her back into his arms, snuggling her against his chest.

“Answer,” he demanded.

“Uh,” said Clint. “It’s a kitten? Not sure there’s much to tell.”

That only made the scowl on the Winter Soldier’s face deepen. “Does she have a name?” he gritted out.

“Not yet,” said Clint, starting to sit up and then freezing in place when the Winter Soldier’s glare grew fiercer. “I found her an alleyway a couple of days ago, I was just making sure she was okay before I took her to a shelter.”

By which he meant that he’d been waiting until it was inevitable that he’d have to give her up, because next week he was going on a mission of indefinite length and while Kate would take Lucky, she was allergic to cats and had made it clear she wasn’t interested in taking on a kitten for an indefinite amount of time.

“A shelter,” repeated the Winter Soldier, looking down at the cat. “No.”

Clint took advantage of his distraction to sit up a bit, slumping back against the headboard and rubbing a hand over his face. “Not much else I can do,” he said. “I’ve got no one else to take care of her, and my life isn’t really built for looking after a cat.”

The Winter Soldier looked down at the kitten again, which was clinging to the hilt of one of his knives with both paws, clawing at it like she wanted to pull it loose, or maybe like she wanted to climb up his chest using it.

Clint could empathise. He wanted to climb the guy like a tree as well.

“I’m guessing you’re here to use my shower and fix yourself up.”

Ever since he’d run into the Winter Soldier halfway through clearing a Hydra base and rashly brought him home to patch him up, and then even more rashly handed him a set of spare keys, he’d been aware of the guy’s occasional visits. The Soldier didn’t ever try to hide that he’d been there, leaving the cupboard of medical supplies neater than before but usually depleted, damp towels in the laundry basket and, once, a note on the fridge in charmingly old-fashioned handwriting that said _You need to buy more suture kits. Thank you._

Clint had left a note in response, leaving it up for weeks until the next time he knew the Winter Soldier had slipped in and out.

_You’re welcome. Feel free to come by and have coffee with me sometime when we’re both around._

The note had disappeared from the fridge but the Soldier hadn’t ever taken Clint up on his offer.

And now he was looming over Clint, demanding answers about a kitten like there was anything much to say about it.

“I was,” said the Soldier, glancing back down at the kitten again as if just the sight of her had changed all his plans.

“Okay,” said Clint, rubbing at his face again, then he held out his hands. “How about I take this girl downstairs while you do that? I’ll get her some food and put on some coffee for us, and then we can talk properly when you’re not, you know, still kinda bleeding.”

The Winter Soldier glanced down at his arm like he’d forgotten he’d clearly been shot at some point, then back at the kitten, face twisting with indecision.

“She’ll be waiting when you’re all done,” Clint said gently.

That got him a scowl and the kitten placed into his hands with a great deal of care, as if she were fragile porcelain, and then the Winter Soldier stomped off into the bathroom and shut the door behind himself.

“Okay,” said Clint quietly. He looked at the kitten, who seemed mildly put out to have lost her climbing frame. “Apparently he’s a cat guy. Didn’t see that coming.”

He took the kitten downstairs and settled her down with some of the kitten food he’d bought while guiltily telling himself he’d go to the shelter tomorrow, then put the coffee maker on. Lucky wandered over, looking put out to be woken up in the middle of the night, so Clint gave him a treat as compensation.

He leaned back against his counter, watching the two animals, and wondered what the hell he should be doing. This situation with the Winter Soldier using Clint’s place as an impromptu safehouse had been weird enough to start with, without the guy losing his shit over a stray kitten.

He knew what he should be doing was contacting Steve and letting him know that his buddy was here, but that was what he should have done months ago, when he first met the guy. Clint knew all too well what it was like to have your choices taken away, and he didn’t want to be the asshole doing that just as the Winter Soldier was getting his independence from Hydra.

Fuck. This was another of those messes that Clint got deeper and deeper in, all while having the best intentions. If he had to get Nat to bail him out, she was going to roll her eyes so hard, and make that little sighing huff sound that always made Clint feel like seven kinds of shit.

The Winter Soldier was finished quickly enough that Clint was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything more than slap a dressing on the bullet wound, and came galloping down the stairs with a look of mild panic until his eye caught on the kitten.

The kitten seemed just as attached, if the way she meowed and trotted over to him, reaching up to pat at his pants leg until the Soldier bent to pick her up, was anything to go by.

The Soldier had left most of his combat gear upstairs and was just wearing his combat pants and a Henley that clung a little too well over his shoulders. His hair was still damp and starting to curl and, damn, Clint should not be making this whole thing more of a mess by getting a crush on the guy, but how was he meant to avoid it when he went around looking like that? 

The Soldier petted the kitten thoroughly for a moment, an unbelievably tender look on his face that Clint had to see to believe, and then he looked back at Clint with that same accusatory glare.

“There’s no need to look at me like I’ve done something wrong,” said Clint. “I found her alone and dirty in an alley and brought her home for a bath and some food.”

“You want to put her in a shelter,” said the Soldier, sounding deeply betrayed.

Clint rubbed at his face, wondering how the hell he was going to fix this. “Go sit down,” he said. “Or, hell, there are a couple of toys under the sofa if you want to just play with her instead.”

“Alpine,” said the Soldier defiantly, lifting his chin up.

“What?”

“Alpine,” repeated the Soldier. “Names are important, so I gave her one.”

He was still staring at Clint as if daring him to complain and Clint might be dumb, but he wasn’t _that_ dumb. 

“Okay,” he said. “Alpine.” And then, because he hadn’t gotten an introduction the first time around and he wasn’t about to go making assumptions about someone else’s identity but he also couldn’t keep calling the guy ‘the Winter Soldier’, even in his head, he added, “And what should I call you?”

The Soldier was silent for a moment, then he let out a long, slow breath. “Bucky,” he said, like it was some kind of holy word.

Clint found a smile for him. “Bucky,” he repeated. “I’m Clint.” Bucky gave an awkward nod, like he didn’t know what to do with that, so Clint turned to the coffee machine to give him some space. “Go sit down, I’ll bring it over.”

Bucky stayed still for another moment, then moved away as Clint pulled some mugs out of the cupboard and started pouring for them.

When he took them over to the lounge part of the room, Bucky was slumped on the floor by the sofa, teasing Alpine with a toy mouse and that tender look was back again. He didn’t even look up when Clint set his coffee down, which showed a shocking lack of priorities.

“I’ve looked at good shelters,” said Clint. “I found one with a really high rehoming rate-”

Bucky’s head jerked up and he glared at Clint again. “They’ll put her in a _cage_.”

“Only until they can find her a good home,” said Clint. “Somewhere with someone who can look after her properly.”

The glare didn’t diminish at all.

“She’s a cute kitten, I can’t believe she’ll be there long,” added Clint. Alpine darted in to attack Bucky’s hand now that he’d stopped twitching the mouse for her, and Bucky turned his attention back to her.

“Look,” carried on Clint, “I’ve got a mission next week, and I’ve no idea when I’ll be back. You’ve been visiting often enough that you must have realised there’s nothing regular or predictable about my schedule. I can’t keep her here.”

Bucky kept scowling but he didn’t look up from Alpine. Clint took a sip of his coffee and left him to think about it, just watching them play for now. Damn, they really were cute together.

“If you’ve found yourself a place to live, I’ll let you take her,” he added, which made Bucky’s shoulders hunch up, but he didn’t say anything else. Clint assumed that meant he was still living on the road, taking out Hydra bases and sleeping wherever he could.

“You could always go to Steve,” he tried. “He’d let you stay with him, and his apartment’s big enough for a kitten.”

Bucky was already shaking his head. “I can’t,” he said, and left it at that.

Clint let out a sigh and settled back in his chair. “I don’t see we’ve got any other options, then.”

Bucky stayed silent and kept playing with the kitten. Lucky curled up in his bed and went back to sleep and Clint finished his coffee, and still Bucky didn’t say anything. He just kept playing with Alpine like it was the sole focus of his world.

“I’m going back to bed,” said Clint, standing up and stretching. “Stay as long as you like. I’ll be keeping her until Tuesday and then taking her to the shelter, if you want to come with us so you can see they’ll take care of her there.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, he just kept staring at Alpine, who was growing more lethargic about chasing after the toy.

Clint left him to it and went back to bed.

****

When he got up the next morning, he was completely expecting to be alone in the apartment, but when he came downstairs Bucky was still there.

He was lying on the sofa with Alpine curled up asleep on his stomach, and he was staring at her with the exact same look of soft wonder that he’d had last night. Apparently a night playing with her hadn’t been enough to dim his affection.

“Okay,” said Clint, pausing on the stairs. “Gonna hang around until Tuesday then?”

Bucky glanced up at him, looking like taking his eyes off the kitten was tricky. “No,” he said and started to move, then froze in place when Alpine shifted slightly, clearly digging her claws in at the suggestion of her bed disappearing. Bucky froze still and relaxed back in place. “No,” he said. “No shelter.”

Clint felt like groaning, so instead he headed for the coffee machine. “We went over this. There’s no other option.”

“I’ll stay here next week,” said Bucky. “While you’re on your mission. Mine can wait.”

A number of thoughts occurred to Clint about that, all of which he shoved aside to say, “And then what? You go off again, and then SHIELD calls me in, and we’re back where we started.”

“You stay here at least a week after a mission,” said Bucky, which meant he’d been watching Clint. Great, apparently he had an assassin stalking him, as well as trying to talk him into keeping a cat. 

“Right,” he agreed. “SHIELD regulations, at least a week of recovery after a multi-day mission.”

Bucky nodded. “A week is long enough for me to complete the next part of my mission,” he said, presumably by which he meant ‘take out a Hydra base’.

“Okay,” said Clint, pouring himself a mug of coffee and turning to lean back against the counter. “And then? I don’t get a lot of notice on when the next mission is, we won’t be able to make a custody schedule. Sometimes I don’t even get twelve hours notice, and only that much because they know I need to get Lucky sorted out.”

Bucky shook his head and gestured at the table, where Clint realised there were two burner phones, still in their boxes. He must have gone out very early to get those. “You call me,” he said. “You get a mission and I’ll drop whatever I need to and get here until you’re back.”

Clint considered that, drinking more coffee to make sure he had it straight in his head. “You want me to let a trained assassin stay in my apartment and catsit every time I go on a mission?” he said in the end. 

Bucky blinked as if he hadn’t thought of it like that. “I’m not going to kill anyone while I’m here.”

“You better not,” muttered Clint, and sighed. “Some of my missions go on for weeks, are you really sure about getting trapped here that long?”

Bucky just shrugged. “With her?” he said, looking back down at the kitten. “Absolutely.”

He carefully slid his hands under the kitten, ignoring her unhappy squirm as he sat up, then settled her back in his lap, one hand resting on her back protectively as he met Clint’s eyes.

“It won’t be permanent,” he said. “I will go to Steve sometime. I just...I need more time. And she needs us to be there for her.”

Clint let out a long sigh but the truth was he hadn’t really wanted to give the kitten up either, not once he’d seen her napping pressed into Lucky’s fur. “Okay, fine,” he said. “First sign of trouble, though-”

“There won’t be any,” said Bucky. “Thank you.”

Clint just gave him a weak smile, thinking that Natasha was definitely going to have his head when she heard about this.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky stayed long enough for them to charge the phones and get the numbers programmed into each and then disappeared, saying he’d be back after Clint had left on his mission. He took a long moment to say goodbye to Alpine, pressing his face close to hers, and after that Clint didn’t see him for months.

He did at least hear from him. Clint would get a response every time he sent a text saying he had a mission and when he was leaving, although it was rarely more than _Acknowledged._ He hadn’t worked out how Bucky always knew when Clint was on his way back home, but he was always gone by the time he got there, leaving a happy and well-fed cat behind him, and usually a couple more cat toys.

Clint took to leaving notes when he left on a mission. At first just little things like, _Cat litter’s running low, sorry, didn’t get a chance to grab more_ or _She’s started climbing the curtains, please don’t let her._ He started getting responses as well: A post it stuck to a pack of treats saying, _She hates these. Next time, the salmon ones_ , or a scrawl on the bottom of one of his notes saying _Sorry about the curtains_.

Clint took Alpine to the vet for her first check up but was away on a mission when it was time for her second lot of shots so he left all the details for Bucky and crossed his fingers that the Winter Soldier could handle taking his beloved cat to the vet without shooting anyone for making her sad.

It seemed to go okay, in that Clint didn’t get an alert for a major incident in his neighbourhood. He came home to the usual spotlessly clean apartment, happy-looking cat and a brand new cat tree with multiple levels, as well as a note from Bucky.

_The vet thinks we’re dating. Sorry._

Clint just sighed because of course this was his life now.

He was around to take Alpine along for her next appointment and got a warm smile from the vet as soon as he came in with her.

“Oh yes, I remember little Alpine,” she said, stroking the kitten. “Your other daddy was very nervous, wasn’t he?”

Clint managed a wan smile, wondering when he’d ended up with two different co-parents for two adopted animals and if that made him the pet-owner equivalent of a slut. “He doesn’t like needles.”

“Yes, I could tell,” said the vet, sounding very amused. Clint had just been trying to make an excuse for Bucky’s over-protectiveness, but now he thought about it he figured the guy who’d been Hydra’s labrat for decades might have a bad reaction to injections, even when he wasn’t the one getting them. “Will you be the one coming to the rest of Alpine’s appointments, then?”

Clint shrugged. “Depends on work.”

She nodded understandingly, gave Alpine the injections and proclaimed her fit and healthy, and then Clint took her home, clutching a couple of leaflets she’d given him about spaying.

He read them that night, before slumping back on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. It didn’t seem like a decision he should make on his own, now that Bucky was so invested in the cat’s welfare.

He pulled out the burner phone which he kept tucked in the drawer that used to hold his spare keys. He should probably get another set cut at some point.

_We need to talk about spaying._

It was about an hour later that Clint got a response. _For you or Alpine?_

Clint just stared at it for nearly a full minute.

Was that…? Had the Winter Soldier actually made a joke?

Wow, maybe having partial custody of a cat had been better for him than Clint realised.

Another text came through while he was still trying to work out how to respond. _I’m happy for us to do it once she’s old enough but I’d like to be there for her recovery._

_You’re welcome to come stay even if I’m around,_ sent back Clint, then added, _You always are. No need to hide from me._

He didn’t get a response to that so he tucked the phone away again. If he were Natasha, he’d have some kind of long-play plan on bringing Bucky in from the cold, rather than just clumsily fumbling his way towards some kind of friendship in the hopes of being able to talk to him properly about it.

Of course, if he were Natasha, he’d have taken Alpine to the shelter on the first day he’d found her and Bucky would never have met her.

About a week later, Clint was sprawled on the couch with Lucky at his feet and Alpine curled up on the back of the sofa, occasionally swiping at his neck. He was keeping her distracted by passing up the occasional bit of meat from the top of his pizza, which meant he had to then hand some down to Lucky every time or risk overwhelmingly sad puppy eyes and, just, he wasn’t getting to eat much of the pizza himself. He might have to order a second one.

There was a knock at the door that sounded more tentative than most people who came around. He got up with a groan, setting down his pizza slice in the box and flipping the lid over in the faint hope it would protect it from two greedy animals.

He opened the door to find Bucky there. He just stared for a moment, taking in the baseball hat pulled down over his eyes, the leather jacket and tight, _tight_ jeans. It was the first time he’d seen him when he wasn’t wearing his combat gear and wow, it was a _treat_.

“You’ve got keys,” he pointed out. “Please tell me you haven’t lost them, getting locks changed is a fucking bitch.”

“Uh, no,” said Bucky, and pulled his keys out of his pocket to dangle them for a moment. “Just...felt rude to let myself in while you’re here.”

Clint didn’t get that, but he stood back to let Bucky come in.

Alpine was already on the coffee table batting at the pizza box but the moment she saw Bucky she dashed across the room to him. He dropped down and scooped her up, pulling her in for a cuddle as if they’d been parted for a lifetime rather than a couple of weeks. “Hey, little lady,” he said in a soft voice and _damn_ , Clint didn’t have the resistance to cope with a guy that hot being that gentle with a kitten.

This crush was probably going to make things really awkward at some point.

Clint headed back to the sofa and pulled his pizza slice back out of the box as Lucky also trotted over to Bucky to be greeted.

Bucky‘s head came up like a predator and his eyes went from Clint’s slice, to the box, to Alpine. “Tell me you haven’t been feeding her pizza,” he said in a dangerous rumble that should not have been such a turn on.

“Only bits of the chicken from the top,” said Clint. “As a treat.”

Bucky glared at him like he’d admitted to genocide. “Do you have any idea how bad that crap is for her?” he hissed, striding across the room with Alpine still curled up in his arms. “I thought I could trust you to take care of her!”

“You can,” said Clint. “Look at her, she’s fine. Although, if you have a problem, you’re always welcome to take her and go move in with Steve.”

That earned him another glare, then Bucky sat down next to him with a sigh, settling Alpine in his lap where he could start playing with her, letting her gnaw on his metal fingers. “I can’t go to Steve,” he said tiredly. “Stop pushing.”

Clint shrugged. “He’s my friend, I’ve got to say it every so often,” he said. “But okay, fine. You just here for a visit, or are you hiding some injury under there?”

“Just a visit,” said Bucky and shrugged, still focused on Alpine. “I was missing her. You said I was welcome.”

“Oh yeah,” agreed Clint. “I was just going to watch a movie, you up for that? Pizza’s pretty much all gone but there’s the fixings for grilled cheese, or…” He paused and thought about the contents of his cupboards. “Cereal?” he ended, rather lamely.

Bucky snorted. “Happily, I already ate. A movie’s fine, I just wanted to play with Alpine a bit.”

Clint threw on the first movie he could find and finished his pizza, trying to ignore the way Bucky kept playing with Alpine until she jumped up and ran across the room, then slid off the sofa to sit cross-legged on the floor and tease her with some string. More than once her antics made him smile and, hot damn, he looked pretty when he was happy.

Alpine ran out of energy before Bucky did and came back to him to curl up and be petted gently to sleep. Clint could hear her purring over the soundtrack of the movie and decided he’d probably purr that loudly if he had those large, gentle hands stroking over his body.

He probably shouldn’t make it creepy, though.

After the movie was over and Clint had watched an episode of _Great British Bake Off_ , Bucky stretched, and then gently moved Alpine from his lap to the sofa.

“I’m gonna head out,” he said softly.

“Okay,” said Clint. “It was good to see you, feel free to pop around whenever you like.”

The look Bucky sent him was fairly inscrutable, but he nodded before leaving. Clint let out a sigh and looked at where Alpine was sleeping. “Not often you run into a guy who’ll love you like that,” he said to her. “You’re a lucky kitty.”

She slumbered on in peaceful happiness.

****

After Bucky had plucked up the courage to take Clint up on his offer and spend an evening with Alpine, Clint started sending him photos of her. Every couple of days Bucky got another picture of her curled up next to Lucky, or trying to climb up a bookcase, or glaring at the camera with a look that said she hadn’t wanted to be disturbed.

They weren’t particularly well-framed or even completely in focus, but every single time, he felt that warm flood in his heart that he’d realised was love, and sometimes he had to sit down and take a few minutes to really study the photo just to take it all in.

He hadn‘t realised he had the capacity to feel like this about anything, not after everything Hydra had done to him. It felt like a miracle every time it happened.

Emboldened by the photos and Clint’s casual reaction to the last time Bucky had shown up, he let himself go around again, on another evening when he could see Clint sprawled on his sofa in a posture that said he wasn’t expecting anything to happen.

“Hey man,” said Clint easily, stepping back and letting him in without needing to be asked. “I think she’s asleep on my bed at the moment.”

“Thanks,” said Bucky, wondering how Clint always managed to make this seem so easy and casual when he was crawling with anxiety and awkwardness.

Except she wasn’t asleep any longer, because she came flying down the stairs and then launched herself at him through the railings. He caught her as well as he could, overwhelmed all over again by how soft and perfect she was. 

“God, she’s getting big,” he said, making a fuss of her so she’d know how much he’d missed her. Lucky came over to nose at his legs and he crouched down to show him some love as well, so he wouldn’t feel left out.

“Yeah, she’s starting to get through a couple of those packets of food every day,” said Clint, settling back down on the sofa. “Gonna eat me out of house and home, aren’t you, you voracious little thing?”

Bucky hadn’t really considered how much having a cat he hadn’t planned for must be costing Clint. He had a sudden flood of a feeling he’d almost forgotten from his childhood, the sick dread of outgrowing his shoes or tearing a shirt, and knowing there wasn’t going to be quite enough money to replace them without scrimping and saving. He’d bought most of Alpine’s toys, and some of her food and litter when Clint was away longer than expected, but mostly Clint was covering everything. The vet’s bills had gone to him, he’d bought the catbed that she usually ignored in favour of stealing Lucky’s and he got almost all her food and litter, usually leaving a cupboard full for Bucky when he arrived to look after her.

How much did that all add up to?

“I can help,” he said, his mind already whirling. Most of his money came from stealing the petty cash at Hydra bases before he burned them down, or selling off some of their most harmless equipment. Occasionally he stole stuff, but only from big corporations that he figured could afford it. Alpine’s cat tree had come from Walmart, and he’d just walked out with it without anyone asking any questions. “I can help pay for her stuff.”

Hydra had bank accounts. There must be a way for him to get access to them.

Clint laughed. “Nah, don’t worry about it man, I’m just kidding. I know I don’t make it look like it,” he waved a hand vaguely at his apartment, which was nice enough but always a bit on the bare side, and his belongings that clearly had seen better days, “but a SHIELD agent makes pretty good money, and there’s some compensation for the Avengers stuff as well. It’s going to take a lot more than one little cat to cause a problem.”

Bucky nodded, but made a note to himself to be better at helping with that side of looking after Alpine. He’d taken on the responsibility of her, and pretty much bullied Clint into doing the same, the least he could do was shoulder some of the financial burden.

“Anyway, I was settling in for a _Dog Cops_ marathon and about to order pizza, if you’re up for it,” said Clint, picking up the remote. “Or if you’re up for having it on in the background while you play with Alpine, I guess.”

“You eat too much pizza,” said Bucky, standing up with Alpine trying to climb onto his shoulder to get at his hair and walking over to sit next to Clint on the sofa.

“Impossible,” said Clint. “There’s always room for more pizza.”

Bucky gently detached Alpine from his hair with all the skill of having done so many, many times before, and thought about the current contents of his wallet. “I’ll pay if we get Chinese.”

“Done,” said Clint promptly.

“And if you don’t feed any to the pets,” added Bucky.

Clint rolled his eyes at him. “With you watching? Are you kidding? I don’t actually want to get stabbed.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at him and Clint hurriedly added, “And obviously I wouldn’t do that anyway.”

Alpine made another bid for Bucky’s hair and he turned his attention away from Clint to distract her with the little feather-decorated ball he’d brought along. 

The evening was just as easy as the first one had been. Clint seemed more than happy to focus on his TV show while Bucky played with Alpine and then let her nap on him. Bucky had been worried that being around a SHIELD agent would mean being under scrutiny, constantly watched like he always had been when he’d been with Hydra, but Clint clearly wasn’t concerned about the killer he’d let into his home.

It felt easy and comfortable, and it took Bucky longer to make a move to leave than it should have.

“Gonna go,” he said eventually, when Clint was looking half-asleep and clearly wanted to go to bed. He picked Alpine up off his lap, ignoring her sleepy protests.

“You can stay,” said Clint. “You musta slept on this sofa often enough.”

Bucky thought about it, thought about drifting off on the sofa with Alpine curled up on him like he had so many times before, but this time with Clint sleeping up in the bed above him, close enough for Bucky to hear his breathing. It felt like too much, like shivers of tension under his skin, so he shook his head. There was an empty apartment two blocks over where he’d stashed his stuff, and where he’d slept before. That would do for tonight.

“Gonna go,” he said and stood up.

Clint stood up as well, flicking off the TV and stretching. “Okay, man, no worries. I’m gonna call the vet in the next couple of days and book the appointment for her to be spayed. I’ll send you the details when I have them.”

Bucky nodded and glanced at Lucky, who was asleep, and then back at Alpine. He gave her one last careful stroke, taking care not to wake her too much, then looked at Clint. For a moment it felt like he should be making some gesture to say goodbye to him, but Bucky had no idea what it would be so he just nodded at him and left.

****

Clint sent the text with the details of Alpine’s appointment along with a photo of her sitting in the window, staring out at the blue sky almost wistfully. Bucky ran his finger over the line of her back, then sent back: _I’ll be there._

He was waiting in the alleyway across from the vet’s surgery when he saw Clint arrive, Alpine safely in her cat carrier. It was a hot summer day and Clint was wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off and the neck torn open to show a broad swath of chest, and Bucky had to pause in the alley for a moment to take in the view of the sun bathed over his tanned skin.

As the weather had warmed up into summer, he’d found himself distracted by enjoying seeing men’s bodies on display like that, as another piece of himself woke up from the ice Hydra had encased him in. He’d been aware for a while that Clint was good-looking, but this was the first time that that felt like it had a more personal impact on him.

Clint paused before going into the surgery, glancing around, and Bucky pushed aside the moment to move forward. He caught Clint’s eye as he crossed the road and jerked a nod at him, then crouched to say hello to Alpine, pushing his fingers through the grill of the cat carrier while she glared at him with suspicion. Apparently she was clever enough to have worked out that trips to the vet never ended well for her.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but it’s for the best,” said Bucky. He’d spent several hours in a library reading website after website about spaying to make sure that it was necessary. He had too many memories of invasive medical procedures to really be comfortable with it, but it was undeniable that it was best for Alpine.

“Don’t worry, she’ll forgive you as soon as you give her whatever toy you’ve bought her,” said Clint as Bucky straightened again.

“How do you know I bought her a toy?” asked Bucky as they headed into the vet’s. Clint just gave him a look, raising his eyebrow.

Bucky shoved his hands into his pockets, closing one fist around the tiny teddy he’d bought her to cuddle while she was feeling unwell. “Shut up.”

Clint snorted at him and took Alpine over to the reception desk. Bucky hung back behind him, glancing around the place to check the exits and make sure that no one looked suspicious. He’d done some thorough digging on the place to make sure there was nothing shady going on when Clint had first bought Alpine here, but it never hurt to double-check.

“Okay, we’ll take good care of Alpine, and let you know when she’s ready to be picked up,” said the receptionist, taking the carrier from Clint. Bucky twitched and stared at her. 

“We’ll wait.”

She stared at him. “It’s going to be a few hours,” she said. “There’s no need for you to sit around that long.”

Bucky felt his jaw clench tighter. “We’ll wait,” he repeated, because there was no way he was going to just walk away and leave Alpine here while she was drugged and sliced open and had parts of herself taken out.

Clint cleared his throat and threw a grin at the receptionist. “We’ll be back when you call us,” he said. “You’ve got my number, right?”

She nodded and he grabbed Bucky’s elbow, pulling him away from the desk.

“I’m not leaving her,” said Bucky.

“She’s going to be unconscious for the whole thing,” said Clint, “and you won’t be able to see anything from the waiting room anyway. C’mon, at least come to the diner down the road and have some lunch or something.”

Bucky glanced back at where Alpine was being taken into the back rooms, feeling his heart squeeze with emotion. He glanced out the window at where Clint had gestured, spotting the diner. He’d be able to see the surgery from there, if they sat in the window.

“We’re getting a window seat,” he said and Clint nodded, looking relieved.

“Yes, of course, absolutely,” he said. “Whatever you need, man.”

The diner was meant to be some kind of nostalgic retro theme, which usually made Bucky’s spine itch with how wrong it felt compared to the diners he remembered from when he was young, but today he was too focused on what must be happening to Alpine right now to care. He sat at the table, eyes fixed on the vet’s, while Clint ordered coffee for them both and then a burger for himself when Bucky shook his head at the suggestion of food.

“You’ll be happy to hear I bought a new couch,” said Clint.

Bucky blinked and frowned at him for a second before looking back at the vet’s. “What?”

“I got a new couch,” repeated Clint. “One of those ones that fold out into a bed. I figured it had to be more comfortable for you.”

Bucky turned his attention fully on Clint and waited for a further explanation. Clint’s sofa was one of the comfiest places that he got to sleep these days, now that he was staying in less motels in order to save money so he could buy cat accessories.

“Okay,” said Clint, “so, she’ll be mostly okay after a day or two, but full recovery could take up to a couple of weeks. I wasn’t sure how long you’d want to stay, but I wanted to make sure that if it was the whole time you’d be comfortable.”

Bucky hesitated. He hadn’t really considered that being there for Alpine would mean staying in Clint’s apartment with him actually there. “I want to be with her until she’s fully better,” he said carefully, thinking about spending day after day in the small apartment with Clint. He’d been pretty much always alone since leaving Hydra and he wasn’t sure how he’d cope with having someone else there so much.

“Okay, no worries then,” said Clint. “New sofa bed, all waiting for you.”

Something of Bucky’s hesitation must have shown in his eyes, because Clint added, “If you want, I can go sleep at the Tower and leave you to it? Kate’s got Lucky at the moment anyway, I figured Alpine would recover easier without him around.”

Bucky had already taken advantage of Clint enough without chasing out of his apartment for two weeks. “No,” he said, “it’s fine. It’s just a week or two, right?”

“Exactly,” said Clint, grinning at him like Bucky was the one doing him a favour. “And I’ve got some SHIELD stuff to do so I’ll be out during most of the days.”

Bucky nodded and directed his attention back to the vet’s as Clint’s burger arrived. Alpine needed him to be there for her. He could spend a couple of weeks living with someone else for her.

Especially someone like Clint, who always seemed so easy and relaxed about having Bucky around.

****

The second the vet’s number rang on Clint’s phone, Bucky was up and moving, while Clint was still answering the call and signalling the waitress for the bill. Bucky left him to it, striding down the road and into the waiting room.

“How is she?” he asked the receptionist. “Did it go okay?” She blinked at him for a moment, looking lost, and then glancing at her computer screen.

“Uh…”

Bucky leaned closer over the desk. “Alpine!” he growled. “Did she make it okay?”

“Oh yes, all fine,” she said, and Bucky felt his shoulders slump with relief. “The vet will be out in a moment to talk you through the recovery, Mr. Barton.”

“Oh, I’m not...” said Bucky, and glanced over his shoulder to see Clint pushing through the door, out of breath.

“Fucking hell, man,” he said. “You could have waited two minutes for me to pay.”

Bucky just gave a helpless shrug, because how on earth was he meant to wait a second longer than he needed to before making sure Alpine was okay?

Clint gave him a glare but it felt more exasperated than angry. “I’m Mr. Barton,” he said to the receptionist. “Let us know when the vet’s ready.”

She nodded, glancing between them with curious eyes as Clint grabbed Bucky’s elbow and pulled him over to the chairs.

“Stop freaking out the civilians,” he muttered.

Bucky clenched his jaw but sat down, crossing his arms to try and hold in some of his tension. He wasn’t going to be able to calm down until he’d seen that Alpine was okay with his own two eyes.

Eventually the vet came out and took them back to a room where Alpine was waiting for them, looking groggy and half-awake.

“Oh sweetheart,” said Bucky, rushing over and ignoring both Clint and the vet. “What have they done to you?”

Alpine made a pathetic mewling noise, and he felt his heart break. God, he never should have let this happen to her.

The vet cleared her throat. “She’s doing fine,” she said. “More than fine, she’s recovering quicker than a lot of cats do.”

Bucky stroked over Alpine’s ears as gently as he could manage. Alpine made another pathetic noise then gently nestled into the warmth of his hand.

“You better tell me about the recovery stuff,” said Clint. “I’m not sure he’s going to be paying much attention to anything else.”

“Of course,” said the vet, sounding amused, and Bucky tuned them out, trusting Clint to get all the information. He needed to focus on Alpine right now.

****

Getting Alpine home was more nerve-wracking than it should have been, given it was a walk of only a few blocks. Bucky refused to let Clint put her back in the carrier and instead held her gently cradled in his arms, tucked close to his chest where he hoped she’d feel safe and warm.

Clint held the building and apartment doors for him, and once they were inside, set Alpine’s bed on the sofa so Bucky could gently lay her down in it, then collapse next to her.

“Hey, you’re going to be okay,” he told her as she blinked sleepily at him. “Here, look, I’ve got a present for you.”

He pulled out the teddy and waggled it at her, and she twitched one paw towards it, as if she wanted to reach out but didn’t have the energy. Bucky carefully tucked it against her and she draped a paw over it, then let her eyes fall shut. He carefully stroked one hand down her body, then sat back with a sigh once it was clear she was asleep.

Clint set a mug of coffee in front of him. Making coffee seemed to be his default reaction to almost any situation.

“The vet said she’s doing really well,” he reminded Bucky. 

“I know,” said Bucky. “Tell me what she said about recovery.”

Clint nodded and pulled a couple of leaflets out of his pocket, handing them over and then running through everything the vet had said. Bucky took it all in, nodding occasionally and then glancing down at Alpine to make sure she was still resting.

“Okay,” he said, once Clint was finished. That all seemed like a mission he could complete easily enough. “I’m going to get my things while she’s sleeping.” He’d stashed them in the empty apartment again, mostly out of habit. “You will keep an eye on her.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” said Clint, throwing off a sloppy salute and then laughing. “Hey, no need to look so serious, this is all routine for cats. We’ve got this, and so does she.”

Bucky nodded stiffly, gave Alpine one last look, and left to get his things.


	3. Chapter 3

The first couple of days were easy. Clint had meetings at SHIELD headquarters most of the day, which meant Bucky was alone in his apartment in a way that was now familiar to him after the last few months of cat-sitting. 

Alpine was quieter than normal and did a lot of sleeping, which meant Bucky could sit and watch her sleep, and occasionally take a photo to save to his phone. She had really taken to the bear he’d brought and kept it close while she was napping, occasionally snuggling around it in a way that made him have to take a deep breath to try and cope with the wave of affection.

When Clint came back in the evenings, he put on the TV and ordered take out, and that felt like the couple of evenings when Bucky had turned up to play with Alpine, even if she wasn’t in a playing mood right now.

It was at the end of the night, when Clint went upstairs to bed and Bucky made up the futon for himself, that things felt weird. Clint was usually already in bed when Bucky went up to use the bathroom, sprawled out under a thin sheet and not really wearing a lot as the hot weather continued.

Bucky tried to keep his eyes to himself but it was hard when Clint insisted on wishing him good night, or updating him on when he was expecting to leave in the morning.

“Got an early one tomorrow,” he said sleepily as Bucky hovered awkwardly on his way back downstairs, trying to keep his eyes off the way Clint had only pulled the sheet up to his waist. Bucky could see a thin smattering of blond hair over his chest, which fascinated him more than he would have expected. “Going to have to be up earlier than usual, so don’t freak out and stab me when I come down, yeah?”

“I’m not going to stab you,” said Bucky. The first morning Clint had come down, Bucky had startled awake and found himself with a knife in his hand before he’d known what was happening, but he hadn’t come close to stabbing him.

“I really hope not,” said Clint, snuggling down into the pillow. “Where’d Alpine live if you accidentally killed me?”

“I’m not going to stab you,” repeated Bucky with exasperation.

Clint just grinned at him, then pulled out his hearing aids and set them to charge in a clear sign that the conversation was over.

Bucky went back downstairs, thinking about how easy Clint seemed to find it to make himself vulnerable by falling asleep unable to hear while in a small space with one of history’s deadliest assassins. Something about it made him feel the same way as when Alpine nudged at his metal hand for pets, apparently without seeing any difference between it and his other hand.

The next morning Clint was up very early, but apparently not early enough if the way he skipped downstairs swearing softly to himself while dragging a shirt on was anything to go by. 

“Gonna be fucking late,” he muttered as Bucky sat up with a start, his hand on his knife again. 

Alpine lifted her head from the corner of the futon where she had crept in the night. Bucky was trying to get her to sleep in her bed to avoid him rolling over or kicking in the night and hurting her, but it seemed that she was too interested in having the warmth of a human body close by to pay attention to that.

“Nat’s gonna fucking give me that look,” Clint carried on muttering once he’d got his head through the shirt, leaving his hair looking like a disaster. He didn’t seem to have done his pants up before running downstairs and he stopped to do that, giving Bucky a flash of the waistband of his underwear before he did his fly up.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted, then sat down on the edge of Bucky’s bed to pull his socks on. “Need coffee.” He dashed over to the coffee machine, which was always preset the night before. He grabbed a travel mug from the cupboard and splashed coffee in it, leaving a puddle on the counter, then slammed the lid on and headed for the door, pushing his feet into his sneakers and wiggling them until they were on to avoid having to undo the laces.

“Back later,” he said, grabbing his keys and rushing out the door, slamming it behind him.

Bucky stared at it for a moment, then glanced at Alpine, who looked just as taken aback, then lay her head down on her paws.

Bucky lay back down as well, wondering why the hell that disastrous display had set off a tiny glow of warmth in his chest, similar to what Alpine prompted in him. Had his emotions decided that Clint needed so much looking after that he was much the same as having a pet?

He didn’t go back to sleep but he lay in bed for a while thinking it over. He thought about the way Clint seemed to live off coffee and take out, and how the only groceries he ever seemed to have were for the pets. The sheets Bucky used to sleep on the sofa were always clean and waiting for him when he came to stay, but Clint’s bed never even seemed to get made, let alone changed. The range of medical supplies in the bathroom made it clear that Clint thought of getting actual medical help as a last resort, even though he must have access to doctors at both SHIELD and through the Avengers for free.

It seemed like maybe he did need as much looking after as the animals, maybe even more. If Bucky was going to be just hanging around his apartment for the next week or so, maybe he should take care of Clint as well as Alpine.

That day he left Alpine alone for the first time since her operation, rushing down to the nearest grocery store and going around it as quickly as he could. He picked up enough food for them to have real meals in the evenings, as well as another set of sheets so he could put Clint’s in the wash.

He tidied most of the apartment, wiping up the coffee Clint had spilled and clearing out the old take out in the fridge. Alpine was starting to be more awake but she didn’t seem to have as much energy as she usually did so was content to just wander around the apartment after Bucky, watching him do housework as if it were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen.

If Clint rarely did any, maybe it was.

About mid-afternoon she settled down for a nap in the sun and Bucky paused his housekeeping long enough to lay next to her and watch her sleep for a while. It was so soothing watching her chest move up and down, taking in just how relaxed she managed to become. It made some of the ever-present tension in his own shoulders melt away.

When Clint came in, Bucky was halfway through cooking dinner. Clint paused in the doorway and just stared in a way that made Bucky twitch and want to hide away, but he’d decided he was going to do this and he was going to follow through.

“I had no idea you could cook,” Clint said, sounding dazed. “Wow, I don’t think those pans have ever been used.”

“Yeah, that was pretty obvious from the dust,” said Bucky. He’d had to clean everything thoroughly before starting to cook, which was why he was still only halfway there and not ready to set down a complete meal like he’d been planning.

“Okay, that’s- wow, okay,” said Clint, and then shook his head. Alpine had come over to greet him with a polite sniff of his ankles and he bent down to stroke her. “Hey, kitty. How’re you feeling today?”

“She’s getting more energy back,” said Bucky. “We’re going to have to start watching to make sure she doesn’t overexert herself by running about or jumping.”

Clint nodded as he stood up. “Good thing she’s got a hypervigilant super-soldier looking after her then. Hey, have I got time for a shower before dinner?”

Bucky ran his eye over the pots on the stove and nodded. “There’s about twenty minutes yet.”

“Cool,” said Clint, then casually moved in to wrap an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and give him a squeeze before letting go and heading upstairs.

Bucky froze in place under the flood of sensation the casual touch had sent running through him. Other than his cuddles with Alpine, he couldn’t remember anyone touching him in a friendly, affectionate manner like that for...decades. Since Steve, or one of the other Commandos, probably. He hadn’t realised how much he craved it.

When Clint came back down he’d changed into pyjama bottoms and an old t-shirt. It made him look soft and approachable, and Bucky had to turn away and pretend to concentrate on his cooking for a minute or two to fight back the urge to go over to him and see if he’d touch Bucky again.

Maybe staying here was going to turn out to be a mistake. Bucky had so much riding on Clint’s continued tolerance of Bucky’s visits to Alpine, and so little idea of how to be someone’s friend any more. It felt like a recipe for disaster.

“Hey did you change my sheets?” asked Clint.

Bucky just shrugged, feeling even more awkward. God, this was all so hard. “Not a lot else for me to do here all day.”

“Thanks, man,” said Clint, patting his shoulder again, before turning away to open the fridge. “Hey, do you want a b- Whoa.” He stared for a moment, then turned to look at Bucky. “I think this is the most amount of real food I’ve ever had in here.”

Bucky gave another horribly awkward shrug, wanting to sink down into the floor. “Seemed like we should be eating more than take out.”

“Damn, shoulda got you to come stay a lot sooner,” said Clint, grabbing a beer out. He waggled it at Bucky who nodded at him, then turned to start plating up as Clint pulled another out and opened both bottles for them.

For the first time, Clint didn’t put on the TV while they ate. Instead, he talked casually about his day, skipping over exactly what he’d been doing at SHIELD to focus on a cute dog he’d seen on the way home, and the annoying guy he’d had to put up with in the canteen while having lunch. He asked about Bucky’s day and about how Alpine had been, and Bucky found himself talking far more than he thought he could, telling him about every little thing she’d done, every sign of her recovery or cute little moment. He even pulled out his phone and showed Clint a couple of the photos he’d taken of her sleeping in the sun.

It should have been awkward, and a test of his minimal social skills, but somehow with Clint it was just easy. They did put on a movie after dinner, and Alpine brought her teddy over to curl up between them on the sofa, where they could both pet her if they wanted to.

They both wanted to. A couple of times Bucky’s hand grazed against Clint’s, and he pulled it away, muttering an apology, but Clint didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Spoilt little thing,” he said to Alpine, petting over her ears. “You’ve got us right where you want us, huh?”

Alpine just blinked at him, then let her eyes fall shut as she relaxed into another nap.

“I wish I could get away with napping as often as she does,” said Clint.

“I napped this afternoon,” said Bucky, just to wind him up, although he hadn’t actually managed to nod off. He’d lain for half an hour in the sun, as calm and relaxed as he could remember being, that had to come close, right?

Clint let out a long sigh. “I mean, I guess you deserve some rest after everything but also, man, so unfair. I wanted to nap this afternoon but I had to sit through Fury’s stupid briefing instead.”

“What time are you going in tomorrow?” asked Bucky.

Clint brightened. “I’m not! A whole day free of secret agent bullshit. I’m gonna go over to Kate’s and steal my dog back long enough for a walk.” He hesitated and then added, “You could come with me. Alpine will be fine on her own for a couple of hours, and you know Lucky would be thrilled to see you.”

Bucky looked at Alpine. She probably would be fine on her, particularly if it was during one of her napping times, and he’d like to see Lucky. He didn’t get to see him very often because he was never there when Bucky came by to catsit. He thought about getting to take him to a park and throw a ball for him. For some reason the mental image included Clint in one of his sleeveless shirts grinning with the sun beaming down on him and, yeah, Bucky wanted to see that.

“Okay,” he said. “If she seems fine tomorrow.”

“Awesome,” said Clint, grinning at him far wider than Bucky thought was justified.

****

Taking Lucky for a walk was even better than Bucky had imagined. Clint brought a frisbee along as well as a ball and they ended up playing with it for over an hour, chucking it about between themselves long after Lucky had got tired and lain down.

“You’re good at this,” said Clint, grabbing the frisbee out of the air. “You ever throw Steve’s shield?”

Bucky shrugged. “ A few times,” he said, trying not to think about the last time he had, when he’d thrown it right at his best friend’s face. “You?”

“Once,” Clint said, chucking the frisbee back and making Bucky run for it. “I keep asking to borrow it for training, but the guy’s pretty possessive.”

“He used to sleep with it right next to him,” Bucky remembered as he caught the frisbee and flicked it back at Clint.

“Still does, I think,” said Clint.

Bucky had a flash of memory, of Steve sprawled out on an Army camp bed in a tent somewhere in Italy, the shield propped up next to his pillow, and imagined him now, in a modern bed in his apartment with it propped up just the same. A wave of affection for the idiot washed through him and he had to take a moment to breathe through it. 

“Such a doofus,” he said, shaking his head.

Clint had paused with the frisbee in his hands. “You know,” he said, but didn’t finish his sentence.

He didn’t need to. Bucky just shook his head, because he was still a long way from ready to see Steve again, and looked back at Lucky. “I think we tired him out,” he said. “I’m gonna head back to check on Alpine.”

Clint nodded. “Okay, I’ll take him back to Kate then come home. Might stop by the doughnut place, got any favourites?”

Bucky couldn’t remember ever eating a doughnut, so he just shook his head. “Anything’s fine.”

“I’ll get a variety box so you can try them all,” said Clint, whistling to Lucky to get him to rouse himself.

****

Doughnuts were incredible. Bucky made it through most of the box before he was able to stop himself, while Clint just watched and grinned at Bucky’s enthusiasm.

“Guess Hydra wasn’t much for pastries.”

“Treats were unnecessary for the efficient working of the Asset,” said Bucky, and gently fended Alpine off from trying to lick his doughnut again. “No, this is no good for you.”

Clint snorted. “Not much better for us.”

“It tastes too good for that to matter,” said Bucky, taking another bite of the chocolate cream-filled one he was working his way through.

“Yeah,” agreed Clint. “It’s fucking heartbreaking you haven’t had any treats for years, I’m gonna make that up to you.”

A wave of warmth ran over Bucky, in the same way that it did when Alpine chose his lap to curl up and sleep in. He cleared his throat against the burst of emotion. “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I really do,” said Clint, and grinned at him. “Don’t act like you’re gonna complain about getting cake when I’ve just seen you inhale pretty much the whole box of these.”

Bucky just gave a faint shrug and took another bite of doughnut, trying to hide that he was going to be lying awake tonight, replaying this moment and sorting through all the many emotions it had given him.

The next day, when Clint came back from SHIELD, he brought a box of cupcakes, and every day after he brought a different kind of baked good. Bucky tried to tell him he didn’t need to, but it was hard to make that stick when he couldn’t hide how much he enjoyed them.

“It’s only fair, you’re doing all the cooking,” said Clint. “Here, try the red velvet one, I think you’re gonna love it.”

Bucky did love it.

They‘d settled into a routine of talking over dinner and watching a movie after. Talking to Clint only seemed to get easier as the days passed, until Bucky found himself able to make jokes that made Clint laugh, lighting his face up and making his eyes crinkle in a way Bucky was kind of fascinated by.

Alpine slowly got more active, so Bucky had to start keeping a sharp eye on her to make sure she didn’t try to climb anything and pull at her surgical wound. 

“Oh no you don’t,” he muttered, abandoning mopping the kitchen floor to grab her before she could get more than a shelf or two up on the bookcase. “Be gentle with yourself,” he told her as she meowed unhappily at him.

Clint snorted, coming in through the door. “Good advice for all of us,” he said, then held up a bag. “I got churros.”

Bucky cuddled Alpine to his chest, ignoring her squirms to get down until he was sure the idea of the bookcase had been forgotten. “I don’t know what that is,” he admitted.

“You’re gonna love them,” said Clint, going over to turn the coffee machine on and then glancing down as if just realising half the floor was wet. “Ah, sorry.”

Bucky just shook his head and went to sit on the sofa, setting Alpine in his lap and then letting her wander away to sniff at one of the many, many cat toys the apartment was littered with. “So much for Hawkeye’s famed ability to see everything.”

“Hey,” said Clint, grabbing down two mugs, “some of us let our hypervigilance rest when we’re at home.”

“Some of us aren’t at home,” Bucky reminded him, and then felt a pang at the reminder that this weirdly domestic interlude was just that: an interlude. He’d be leaving soon enough, going back to living on the road with no fixed abode until the next time Alpine needed looking after.

Clint wouldn’t be there then, though. He wouldn’t be making coffee every half an hour, or bringing home sweet treats, or telling Bucky how great his cooking was.

When had Clint become such a big part of what Bucky liked about being here? At first it had just been the security of having a place to go to that had a shower and a suture kit, then it had been knowing he could catch a few hours sleep on the sofa without worrying too much about being found, and then it had been Alpine, and all the slow rediscovery of his ability to care for someone else that she’d represented. And now Clint was there as well, the way he smiled and nudged Bucky when something he thought was funny happened in a movie, the sleepy way he wished Bucky goodnight before taking out his aids, even the half-asleep zombie look he sported in the mornings before his first cup of coffee. Bucky wanted to be able to keep hold of all of it.

That wasn’t what this was about though. He was just here to look after Alpine.

Who was looking up at the bookcase again, poised to spring. Bucky grabbed a stuffed fish and went to distract her.

After dinner that night, Clint got up to take their plates to the kitchen while Bucky put on a movie. He didn’t really know much about which movies were good but he’d spent enough time with Clint now to know that anything that he’d enjoy anything that had a picture of an explosion or a stressed-looking guy with a gun. Bucky wasn’t exactly sure yet why he liked watching movies about people doing his job badly, but he was happy enough to go along with it.

When Clint sat back down he had a bowl of popcorn, and he sat close enough to Bucky that their shoulders pressed together for a moment before he shifted a fraction of an inch further away. The touch made Bucky’s skin feel like it was burning, so he reached out and grabbed some popcorn to distract himself.

“Ooh, this is a good one,” said Clint. “You’re gonna love how ridiculous the final fight scene is.”

Bucky wasn’t sure he would, but he obligingly pressed play.

Halfway through the movie, they’d finished the popcorn but Clint hadn’t moved any further away. If anything, he’d relaxed so that he was closer, his leg pressed casually against Bucky’s like it didn’t mean anything.

It probably didn’t, to him, but Bucky was still caught on how little anyone had touched him without it hurting for so long. Was this what it would be like if he did manage to go to Steve?

He mentally placed Steve in Clint’s position and something about it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t that he’d exactly mind being close to Steve, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t come with the same tingling sensation of anticipation.

It wasn’t until the movie was over, including a final fight scene that made Bucky want to groan out loud with how stupid it was, that he realised exactly what the difference was.

“I’ve been signed up for running some training tomorrow so it’ll be another early start,” said Clint, clicking off the TV. 

Bucky nodded. “Want me to make sure you’re awake on time this time?”

Clint rolled his eyes at him. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I’m hardly ever late.”

Bucky wasn’t sure he believed that, but he let it go.

Clint rolled his shoulders to stretch them out then sat forward. “Okay, have a good night,” he said, then patted at Bucky’s knee in an affectionate way before standing up and that-

Oh.

A shiver of pure want ran through Bucky, and he realised he wanted Clint’s hands on a lot more than his knee.

He wasn’t just enjoying looking at Clint, or being his friend, he actually wanted more. He wanted to be following him up the stairs to join him in bed, rather than pulling out the sofa bed down here. He wanted to be here to greet Clint as he came home from work every day with a kiss.

Bucky tried to remember the last time he’d kissed someone and drew a blank. He sat where he was for a while, staring at nothing as he tried to pull back everything he’d once known about how to be with someone in that way. Eventually Alpine came and settled in his lap and he started absently petting her, running through girls he’d taken dancing and shared a sneaky kiss with when he’d walked them home, and guys he’d met in underground bars and had a fumble with in an alleyway. None of that quite felt like what he wanted with Clint, but it was a lot closer than anything he’d ever had with Steve.

He was never going to get any of it, of course. He got to share a cat with the guy, and maybe even a friendship, that should be enough for him. After everything he’d done, it should be more than enough; it was certainly more than he deserved.

Still, when he did finally go to bed, he lay there for a while feeling sadness well up in his chest as he thought about all the things he wanted and wasn’t going to get. Alpine came over and curled up on his chest and rather than making her move like he usually did, he just savoured the warm weight of her, resting his hand on her fur and forcing himself to just focus on how lucky he was to have a tiny, perfect creature trust him so much.

After a while, it was enough to let him drift off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

It felt like the realisation should have made the next day awkward, but Clint overslept again (predictably), so the day started with a rush that Bucky tried to help with by pouring Clint’s coffee for him. Clint’s sparkling smile of gratitude stayed with him long after Clint had rushed out the door.

When Clint got home that evening he had a bag of Danish pastries that distracted Bucky from awkwardness with just how good they tasted, and by the time they were all gone they were well into the now familiar rhythm of their nights together.

Clint sat close to Bucky again, this time without any popcorn for it to make sense. Bucky just let himself savour every casual touch from him and tried not to act too twitchy or weird.

The next day, Clint came back without any baked goods and Bucky tried not to look too obviously disappointed.

“Okay, okay, hear me out,” said Clint. “I’m loving this home cooked meals thing, I really am - I actually don’t think I’ve ever had it before, it’s been great. But it’s also been over a week now since I had pizza and that’s just...that’s just wrong on multiple levels, Bucky.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Is one of those levels your cholesterol level?” Clint just rolled his eyes then fixed Bucky with a faintly pleading look that made Bucky think of Alpine when the cat treats came out. He sighed. “You want to order in tonight,” he said, thinking about the meal he’d been planning and mentally checking none of the ingredients would have gone off by the next day.

“Nope,” said Clint. “I mean, sure, we can do that if you’d prefer, but I actually thought maybe you’d like to go out for pizza. There’s this great place only about fifteen minutes walk away and they have great tiramisu, which I think you’re going to love.”

“I’ve had tiramisu,” said Bucky, too dazed by the suggestion to offer much more.

Clint raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“I liked it,” admitted Bucky. Going out to a restaurant felt like it should be a big deal, but it wouldn’t be much different to going to the diner the day of Alpine’s operation. Bucky had managed that okay, he could manage pizza, especially if it came with tiramisu afterwards.

He glanced at Alpine who was, if he was honest with himself, pretty much recovered now. He didn’t really need to be around any more, although he was hoping Clint hadn't realised that yet.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, and the pure delight on Clint’s face was enough to make the decision worth it on its own.

****

Bucky wasn’t sure if he should be dressing up to go to the restaurant. He knew that back when he was young he’d have dressed up to go out with someone he liked in the way he liked Clint, but back then he might actually have been intending to do something about his feelings. Bucky couldn’t imagine being able to take a step like that right now, especially not when he didn’t think Clint would welcome it.

Besides, those sorts of society rules had changed a lot since his youth, and Clint didn’t seem like the dressing up type anyway.

Plus Bucky didn’t have anything to wear that Clint hadn’t already seen at least twice over the course of Alpine’s recovery, other than his combat gear. 

“I’m gonna fuck this up,” he told Alpine while he was waiting for Clint to have a shower. She just gave him an unimpressed look and started to groom herself.

Which was probably fair.

Clint came down dressed, if anything, even more casually than he had been before his shower, and Bucky let himself relax.

Well, he let himself relax about that, anyway. There were plenty of other things to freak out about.

“Ready?” asked Clint and Bucky looked at Alpine again, as if she were going to give him advice on what he might be forgetting. She was now licking her own ass so Bucky gave up and shrugged at Clint instead.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Cool,” said Clint, beaming at him and bouncing on his heels. The guy really had been missing pizza. “Let’s go then.”

The walk to the restaurant felt weirdly awkward as Bucky rattled his mind for something to say, but after a couple of minutes Clint asked his usual question about how Alpine had been and Bucky forced himself to relax and update him, and things flowed from there as easily as they usually did when they were eating in the apartment.

The restaurant was exactly the kind of hole-in-the-wall place that Bucky had been picturing, and the staff all knew Clint well enough to greet him by name. Clint let Bucky take the seat with his back to the wall, which made some more of Bucky’s anxiety settle down, and then grinned at him instead of picking up the menu.

“I want to make sure you know you’re not allowed to order dessert for both courses.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, glancing down the list of pizzas and wondering if Clint would disown him if he got pasta instead. “I’m not the one that eats like a toddler.”

Clint shrugged without any shame. “I’ve had a week of healthy home-cooked meals, I can afford to ask them just to shovel every topping they have on top of a pizza and bring it out to me.”

“Jesus,” muttered Bucky. If he was going to be watching that, he was definitely getting pasta.

Everything that had happened since Alpine’s operation had felt weirdly out of place in Bucky’s life - too easy, too domestic, too filled with quiet moments of peace - but the dinner that evening topped it all. They chatted like old friends, making jokes until Bucky’s jaw ached from the unfamiliarity of smiling so much. 

Clint challenged him to a contest flicking sugar cubes into a cup that ended when the waitress came over and took the sugar away with a pointed glare, and they both dissolved into muffled laughter as she swept off. Bucky had thought that he’d left laughter like that behind in the 1940s.

“Okay, let’s order your dessert before we get chucked out,” said Clint, sitting back and folding his hands behind his head with a grin. The stretch put the lines of his biceps on impressive display, and Bucky had to tear his eyes away and stare down at the menu so he wouldn’t give himself away.

“Aren’t you getting anything?”

“Nah,” said Clint. “I seem to be weirdly full.”

Given the size of the pizza he’d just gorged down, and the absolute mound of toppings that had been on top of it, Bucky wasn’t surprised.

“I don’t have to get anything,” said Bucky, because it seemed weird for Clint to have to wait around while Bucky ate tiramisu. “We can just head back. See how Alpine is.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “You getting tiramisu was the whole point of this,” he said as if he hadn’t claimed it was for him to get pizza. Bucky felt a weird warmth creep into his face and focused his attention back down on the menu to hide it. Clint was just talking, he hadn’t really brought Bucky out just so he could have dessert.

Except he’d been bringing desserts home all week, would it really be so weird if he’d extended that to taking Bucky to the sugary goodness instead of the other way around?

The waitress came over with her pad and Bucky gave up on overthinking the whole thing, and ordered the tiramisu. She nodded and glanced at Clint who just asked for coffee, of course. Bucky could have guessed that one.

Maybe next time he’d just order it for him, he thought, and then stopped dead at the implications of the thought. 

_Next time._

Next time, what? Alpine wasn’t going to need any more long term care like this, not unless something awful that Bucky wasn’t willing to contemplate happened. In a day or two he was going to have to leave and get back to his real life. There weren’t going to be any more friendly dinners, or laughter, or any of the rest of whatever this was.

The tiramisu came and it was everything Bucky remembered and more. It tasted so good that he found himself focusing on it like it was a mission, savouring every bite and memorising the flavours and textures so he’d be able to bring them precisely to mind next time he was spending the night in an abandoned building and living off protein bars.

When he’d licked the last bit of cream off the spoon, he looked up to see that Clint was staring at him with a dazed expression, hands clutched around his mug. “Wow, okay,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Guess you really enjoyed that.”

And then he smiled, and it wasn’t his usual wide grin, or even his self-satisfied smirk when he was good at something. It was a smaller, quieter look of pure pleasure, as if just knowing Bucky had enjoyed something he’d recommended was making his night.

The wave of emotion in Bucky’s chest was so strong that he had to clench his fingers around the spoon as it broke over him. God, how was it he could feel so much not just for Alpine, but for Clint as well?

Clint’s smile widened and they just stared at each other for a moment that felt like it stretched into an eternity, then it all abruptly became too much and Bucky tore his eyes away from Clint’s, shifting his weight in the chair and glancing at his watch. “Do you think she’ll be asleep when we get back?”

“Almost certainly, but I bet she’ll wake up long enough for you to pet her,” said Clint.

When Bucky let himself glance up at him again, he’d turned away to signal the waitress for the check. Bucky let out a sigh, wondering what the hell he was doing. He couldn’t go feeling things like that, not for Clint. He’d ruin everything, and then where would he be? Where would Alpine be? He didn’t think Clint would take her to a shelter now, but if he stopped being happy about Bucky being in his home, things would get a lot more difficult for all of them.

The walk home was mostly in silence. Bucky focused on the night sky above them, on the familiar glimmer of a tiny handful of stars above the glow of New York that hadn’t changed much since his childhood.

“I reckon Alpine’s probably well enough for Lucky to come back,” said Clint as they turned onto his street. “What do you think? He’s a soft old thing anyway, it’s not like he’s going to make her rush about and mess up her healing. Mostly he’ll just nap with her.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” said Bucky, hiding the sink of disappointment at the reminder that all this was going to be ending soon.

They got to Clint’s building and went inside. As they went up the stairs together, Clint started making theatrical groans about the exercise after all the pizza he’d eaten.

“You coulda taken the elevator,” Bucky pointed out.

Clint made a face and shook his head. “Too noisy. Too easy for the neighbours to corner me in it.”

Bucky couldn’t keep in a smile at that because it was exactly how he felt about the elevator as well. Clint grinned back, then fumbled his keys out and opened the apartment door, going inside first while Bucky made himself take a deep breath and remind himself that he couldn’t let himself have these feelings.

“Hey, precious girl,” Clint said inside the apartment, bending to pick Alpine up as she came to greet them. “Did you have a good night? We did.”

He ran a hand down her back and Bucky got caught again, on how relaxed and easy he was with her. Seeing his two favourite creatures close and cuddled together was almost too much to handle, on top of the rest of the night.

He shut the door behind them and reached out to take Alpine from Clint, trying to pretend the way their hands brushed together was an accident. “You better not have napped the whole time, I’m not staying awake to entertain you.”

She meowed loudly at him and scrabbled to climb up to play with his hair. He sighed and just let it happen, keeping one arm under her butt to steady her.

“Yeah, you will,” said Clint, sounding far more amused than he should be. “Don’t pretend you’re not gone on her.”

He hadn’t moved away at all after Bucky had taken Alpine so when Bucky glanced at him, there were only a few inches between them.

Too close for Bucky to be able to hide any of his feelings from himself, even if he hoped like hell that Clint had no idea that he was thinking about how easy it would be to step forward and press a kiss to his lips.

Alpine yanked hard enough at Bucky’s hair to make him wince and Clint laughed again, then patted Bucky’s shoulder and finally moved away. “I’m going to bed, enjoy that ball of energy. I’m gonna just take out my aids and sleep through all of the inevitable hyperactivity.”

“Thanks,” muttered Bucky, pulling Alpine away from his shoulder while she protested the loss of her toy. She turned and clawed at his wrist instead, which would have been more annoying if it weren’t his metal wrist.

“And, uh, thanks for tonight,” added Clint, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. “I had a great time.”

Bucky stared at him. “I should be the one saying that,” he said. “You took me out.” And shit, that made it sound too much like a date, why had Bucky put it like that? It hadn’t been a date and he _knew_ that. Giving away that he wanted it to be was only going to cause problems.

“Yeah, still,” said Clint with a shrug. “Good night, man. See you in the morning.”

Bucky nodded at him, turning his attention back to Alpine as she started to bite at his arm as well claw at it, then let out a deeply unhappy noise at how the metal felt under her teeth. “C’mon, idiot,” he said to her, and went over to find some actual toys for her to play with.

****

It was a while later before Alpine was settled enough to calm down. She disappeared over to her bed to get her teddy, brought it back to present to Bucky, then flopped over next to him and let him pet her belly.

Bucky would kill for her.

He sighed, stroking down carefully over where the fur was all but grown back over the surgical incision. She was completely healed, he was kidding himself if he thought he needed to be here any longer. He needed to get back on the road, back to the next Hydra base.

The thought didn’t thrill him like it once had.

He couldn’t stay here though. Tonight had proved that conclusively. If he was feeling so many things for Clint, he couldn’t stay living with the guy, pretending they were just friends who happened to share a pet. He was starting to take advantage. The agreement had been that Bucky would be here when Clint wasn’t, not that he’d move in full-time at the first excuse.

He needed to leave, and the sooner the better. The longer he stayed here, the harder it would get.

He should go now, tonight. He looked back at Alpine, who was dozing off under his gentle strokes. He carefully pulled his hand away, replacing it with the teddy, which she wrapped her paws around lazily and then rolled over to snuggle properly.

Just like every time Bucky had to walk away from her for a while, it felt like the sharp stab of pain in his heart was going to tear through his chest, but he made himself take a deep breath and push through it. He snapped a quick photo of her with the phone he’d bought to be a burner and which was now a repository of hundreds of photos of her, and therefore the most precious thing he owned, then made himself get up.

It took longer to pack than he’d thought. Somehow his belongings had found homes for themselves in Clint’s apartment, as if they’d been expecting to stay there. Bucky ruthlessly hunted them all down and chucked them into his bag. He left all the utensils he’d bought after realising just how badly equipped Clint’s kitchen was and the food he’d stocked the fridge with. He just hoped like hell that Clint knew what to do with it all.

Once he’d gathered everything, he paused in the middle of the room, looking around to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Alpine was fast asleep now, and so was Clint if the faint snores from above were anything to go by. Bucky didn’t have any other reason to stay.

He had to dig deep into his willpower before he could get his feet to start moving. He shut the apartment door behind him in complete silence, taking advantage of the time he’d spent oiling the hinges a couple of days ago. It felt like a horrible mistake as soon as it was shut, but he kept moving, heading down the hall and out of Clint’s life.

****

He was in the next state by the time Clint texted him.

_I’m guessing you’ve left of your own free will and not been captured by a surprisingly stealthy gang of bad guys who also decided to take all your shit, but maybe a note next time?_

Next time.

Bucky clenched his jaw at the words, then shoved his phone in his pocket with the text unanswered.

Five minutes later he pulled it back out with a curse because no matter how much it was a mistake to have let himself get this deep in, he didn’t want Clint to worry.

_I’ve got a mission to complete._

Clint didn’t reply for nearly an hour, which was long enough for Bucky to have told himself he wasn’t going to reply, and to be forcing himself to focus on the mission ahead. The base he was heading for was in New Mexico, which was a long trip when you didn’t have any ID or transportation.

_I hope it goes well, man. And so does Alpine._

The text came with a photo of Alpine in one of the compartments of her cat tree, peering out of the entrance hole. Bucky stared at it, thinking about how she’d retreated in there when he’d swept the floor before plucking up the courage to come out and try attacking the broom.

He gritted his teeth and shoved the phone away again, and this time he managed to hold to his resolution and didn’t text Clint back.

That didn’t stop Clint texting him though. Over the next couple of days, Bucky got a text every few hours from him. They were all little, easy things, nothing that demanded a response, but somehow every single one made it that little bit harder to properly slide into mission mode.

_Lucky and Alpine reunited_ with a photo of them lying on opposite ends of the sofa ignoring each other.

_I was going to bring home brownies tonight, so you’re missing out. Maybe I’ll get some in for next time you come by._

_But seriously, what am I meant to do with this?_ with a photo of the contents of the fridge. _You think if I could cook I’d have four take out places on speed dial?_

Bucky did crack at that one. He carefully typed up every single step that he’d have taken for the meal he’d planned for that night and then sent it in a stream of texts.

There was silence from Clint for ten minutes then he just sent.

_Okay. I got this._

An hour later, while Bucky was in a gas station grabbing some water and a pack of protein bars and eyeing the trucks pulled up outside to see which he could sneak into the back of for a ride west, he got another text.

_I don’t got this._

A moment later a photo of complete disaster came through. Blackened pans piled in the sink, the oven gaping open as smoke poured out which, the oven hadn’t even been involved in Bucky’s instructions. How the hell?

_Stick to take out,_ he sent as he headed for the check out.

In front of the till was a selection of candy bars and a few pre-wrapped snacks and cakes. Bucky put down his shopping then hesitated as the assistant rung it up before darting out to grab a brownie and adding it to the stack.

He shoved it all in his bag, then headed over to the darkest corner of the parking lot, where a lorry with an easily-picked lock was headed for Oklahoma.

Once he was tucked in and the lorry was rumbling along the highway, he pulled out the brownie and his phone, using the flash to take a photo in the dark, and then sent it to Clint.

_Hey, you got one! Awesome, but the ones I was going to get were going to be freshly baked._

Bucky just rolled his eyes and ate the thing.

It was really good. He wondered how much better it would have been freshly baked.

****

He spent a couple of days in the lorry during which he managed to exercise enough willpower not to text Clint again, despite the texts still coming through from him. A large number of them were pictures of Alpine, which Bucky suspected was because Clint knew she was his weak spot. Still, it made something in his chest settle to get regular proof that she was safe and well. He stroked his thumb over the screen, then went back through all his old photos, noting all the ways that she had grown since he’d first met her.

God, he wanted to be back there with her, settled on the sofa while she tried yet again to chew through his metal arm and he stroked over her ears with his other hand.

Clint and Lucky would be there as well, and there’d be pizza on the table and a movie on the TV and it would all be so comfortable and easy.

An ache of loss settled into Bucky’s chest and he took a deep breath, then stilled as the truck pulled in and parked.

This was his stop.

The Hydra base wasn’t far into New Mexico. Once he’d found it, he forced himself to turn off the phone, pull on his combat gear and strap on his weapons. Somehow, the outfit that had always felt like a second skin to him didn’t seem to settle right, like at some point in the last couple of weeks it had stopped fitting.

He ignored the feeling. There was a base full of Hydra assholes in front of him and information he needed. This was a mission, and he didn’t fail missions.

He took a deep breath and settled himself into the mindset properly, then grabbed his gun and got going.

****

Moving through a Hydra base taking out everything that moved while planting explosives at every major load-bearing wall had become something of a routine now. Hydra weren’t imaginative with their bases, or their tactics, so Bucky didn’t see the point in being imaginative about blowing them up.

After he’d been through all the main areas of the base and taken out any combat agents, he moved into the administrative offices, where a handful of people in nice suits whimpered as if they hadn’t known exactly what horrors their bureaucracy was supporting and dived under their desks.

Bucky didn’t bother shooting them. They’d have their chance to get out of the base, as long as they were quick enough to escape the inevitable explosion.

He pushed through into the next office, where the secure computer terminal he was looking for was located, and pulled out a portable hard drive. He plugged it in, then had to wait for it to download. He took a look around the office, ignoring the frantic sounds of escaping admin workers from the other room.

There was a calendar on the wall with a photo of a cat dressed as Chairman Mao. It looked disheartened. Bucky glanced at the computer to see the files were still downloading and went over to investigate.

The next month was an even sadder cat dressed as Hitler. Bucky blinked at it in horror. The poor thing was white, like Alpine, although larger than she was. Bucky was struck with a sudden desire to hunt down whoever had trashed these cats’ dignity so thoroughly as he flicked through and found a tabby Stalin and a Siamese Fidel Castro.

He ripped the calendar down from the wall and tossed it across the room, just as the computer beeped to say the files were downloaded.

Bucky grabbed the hard drive then hesitated, thinking about that poor cat dressed as Hitler again, and his mind flicked to Alpine. God, he wanted to be with her right now, looking after her so that no one would ever hurt her, or make her dress up as anything, let alone a fascist dictator.

He couldn’t keep doing this.

He went back out into the other office, which was now deserted, and strode across the room to the door marked **Finance**. Time to make a new plan.


	5. Chapter 5

It was so late that it was almost early. Clint kept the keys clutched tight in his hand, easing the door of the building open to avoid making any noise. He shut it just as silently behind him then started up the stairs, ignoring the elevator and all its clanking noises.

When he reached the door of his apartment, there was silence on the other side, but he already knew the apartment was occupied. He’d seen the light from the street, and the unmistakable silhouette of a man with a cat perched on his shoulder in the window.

He pushed open the door, trying to keep some control over the desperate hope clawing at his insides. Bucky was probably just there for a couple of hours to see Alpine. He might have left as soon as he’d seen Clint coming home, leaving behind nothing but an excited cat and a tidy apartment, just like he always had before Alpine’s operation. Clint shouldn't go letting his emotions run away with him.

Bucky hadn’t left. He was on the sofa with Alpine in his lap and Lucky slumped beside him, and he was dressed in Clint’s favourite of the two worn hoodies that made up the majority of his non-combat wardrobe: the one that was slightly too big and made Clint want to cuddle him until all the tension that never seemed to drop from his shoulders was gone. His bag was on the floor next to the sofa, back in the position it had lived in for the couple of weeks he’d stayed with Clint. It looked like it belonged there.

“Hey,” said Clint, shutting the door behind himself and trying to sound normal. “Wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“You’re back late,” said Bucky with an edge of accusation. “What if these guys had needed anything?”

Clint snorted. “They’re fine,” he said. “I fed them before I left. Tony was having a party, and there’s no way I was going to miss out on that much free booze.”

Bucky’s eyes raked over Clint’s outfit in a way that made Clint want to straighten up and maybe flex his arms a bit. For one of Tony’s parties it had been pretty low key, which meant Clint had still had to dig through his wardrobe for something nice enough to wear, but he hadn’t had to try and hunt down his one good tux, which he had a feeling was at Natasha’s. Or his room at the Tower.

Maybe at Kate’s?

Instead, he was wearing the black jeans he always wore when he was trying to avoid having to put on dress pants and a button down shirt, and he couldn’t tell if Bucky’s look meant he approved, or that he was checking for injuries.

“Are you drunk?”

Right, or that.

“No,” said Clint with a sigh, chucking his keys into the bowl by the door then heading over to sit down on the other side of Lucky, giving him some attention and probably getting dog hair all over his nice clothes. “Tony’s booze is all a bit fancy for me.”

That wasn’t even a little bit true. Clint was usually as happy to drink $300 single malt as he was to drink $15 moonshine, but tonight he’d drunk enough to get to the edge of tipsy and it had come with a wave of melancholy and loneliness, because the guy he’d been getting close to, that he’d spent two weeks building some kind of weird domestic happiness with, had vanished in the night without leaving a note and only replied to maybe five percent of Clint’s texts.

Not that it wasn’t entirely his fault. He’d known even as he’d suggested it that taking Bucky out to a restaurant would be a mistake, but he hadn’t been able to stop pushing. Not when Bucky just about radiated happiness any time he had something sweet and sugary in his mouth.

Clint’d switched to soda after that little gut punch of sadness. He wasn’t interested in letting alcohol make him into a one-man pity party, not when he made it there himself most nights at home, when he sat on his sofa with his dog and the cat who was most definitely Bucky’s, even if Clint housed and paid for her, and the empty space where it felt like Bucky should be.

“Are you staying tonight?” he asked, as casually as he could manage when he was already thinking about getting to smile at Bucky over his morning coffee.

Bucky stared down at Alpine for a long moment with a weirdly serious look on his face, and Clint found himself bracing for something unwelcome, but when Bucky did finally speak all he said was, “Yeah, I think I might.”

Clint let the tension roll out of his shoulders. “Gonna stay for breakfast or sneak out again?” he asked and then, because he _still_ didn’t know how not to push, he added, “There’s a diner down the road that does great pancakes, with frankly illegal amounts of maple syrup.”

That earned him one of the tiny smiles that Bucky had started aiming at more than just Alpine as time had gone by, but it disappeared rather quickly.

“I’d like that,” said Bucky. He hesitated, then glanced down at Alpine’s curled shape in his lap. “I’m going to find somewhere to live. An apartment as close to here as I can find. I don’t- I’m not going to take Alpine from you, because this is her home, but I would like to come and see her as often as you’re happy with, and when you’re away I may start taking her back to my place rather staying here, if that’s okay with you.”

“You’re going to settle down?” asked Clint, and he could tell he sounded as surprised as he felt. He’d assumed that Bucky would stay on the road tracking down and eradicating Hydra until there wasn’t a single agent left.

Bucky’s jaw clenched and he nodded, but didn’t offer any more words.

“Okay, that’s awesome,” said Clint. “You need any help with affording it?”

Bucky shook his head. “I’ve got access to three of Hydra’s off-shore accounts,” he admitted.

Clint laughed. “Okay, then we should get you somewhere really plush. And of course you can take Alpine to live with you. Her home may be here now, but we both know she’s more your cat than mine. If you get your own place, it makes far more sense for her to be with you.” He grinned at Bucky, letting the glow of happiness that he was going to actually be around on a more permanent basis shine through. “I’m happy to take over being catsitter, if you still want to go off and do your thing sometimes.” And then, because he was still pushing, “As long as I get to come around and hang out with her sometimes. And maybe get some of your home cooked food.”

Another smile spread over Bucky’s face. “That seems fair,” he said. “I’ll want to come and see Lucky, after all, although I definitely don’t want to eat any of your cooking.”

“Yeah, I get that,” agreed Clint. “I never want to eat my cooking again either. Still, I’m a pro at ordering pizza.”

For a moment they just beamed at each other over the dog between them, then Bucky blinked and looked down at Alpine again, the smile shuttering off his face.

“I’ll stay tonight, but you don’t need to worry I’ll be here until I find a place,” he said. “There’s somewhere I can stay for a few days while I look for apartments.”

Clint rolled his eyes, flopping back against the back of the sofa in a way that maybe angled his body closer to Bucky’s than was a good idea. “A place you can squat, you mean,” he said. “Don’t be an idiot, just stay here until you’ve got somewhere. Give Alpine a chance to sleep curled up next to you.”

And Clint a chance to have the guy in his home for another few days, so he could pretend for just a bit longer that there was more to this than there was ever going to be.

“Right on top of my face, you mean,” muttered Bucky to Alpine, who just nuzzled her head against his hand. Bucky looked up at Clint with one of the most awkward looks Clint had seen on him. Which was saying a lot, because the more Hydra’s programming had melted out of him, the more awkward he’d got. At least until he’d felt settled enough to relax, and then he’d been almost smooth at times.

“Thanks,” he said. “It won’t be long, I promise.”

Clint shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, trying to keep things casual, and draped his arm further over Lucky so his hand was resting by Bucky’s leg. “As long as you need. It’s not a big deal, I like having you here. If there was a bed for you that wasn’t a sofa, I’d say you shouldn’t bother finding anywhere else and just stay here. You’re maybe the best roommate I’ve ever had.”

Ah shit, maybe Clint had had more to drink than he’d realised, if he was letting truths like that slip out.

Bucky just stared at him while Clint tried to look relaxed and casual, and not at all like he was waiting to find out that he’d overplayed his hand.

“You musta had some really shitty roommates.”

“Yeah,” agreed Clint, thinking about sharing a caravan with his brother, or the couple of years he’d done in the SHIELD barracks, “but also, nope, not really, you’re a hard act to beat, you know.”

“I’m an international assassin with ties to a neo-Nazi terror group,” Bucky pointed out.

“Oh, who isn’t?” asked Clint. “But, seriously, that wasn’t who you really are.” He found himself sitting up, leaning over Lucky to make his point clear because it felt like Bucky needed to stop thinking of himself like that when it wasn’t close to who he was any more. “You’re a great cook, you’re incredibly sweet with your -our- cat, you took it on yourself to sort out the disaster of my flat when you didn’t need to, you sat through a whole bunch of action movies I know you hated just because you knew I liked them, you make me laugh like no one has for years, and you’re working so hard, all the time, to try and be better, even though you’re already better than, like, ninety-five percent of people.”

If Bucky had stared before, now he just looked blitzed. Clint started to get that creeping feeling in his stomach that always came too late, the one that let him know when he’d fucked up something important.

“You did clog the shower drain up with hair though, so I guess it’s not all perfect,” he managed, trying to laugh off the moment.

It didn’t work. Bucky didn’t look like he’d heard him. He just kept staring at Clint, examining his face as if he were seeing far more than Clint wanted him to see on it. Clint tried not to twitch too obviously, but the tension was building up and he knew it was only a matter of time before he fucked up completely.

“Okay, if that’s all settled, I’m going to bed,” he said, standing up and running his hand over his hair. “We’ll do pancakes tomorrow, although I reckon it’ll be more brunch than breakfast by the time I want to get up. Oh, hey, brunch means mimosas, you haven’t had mimosas yet, right? I think you’re gonna lo-”

Bucky reached out and grabbed Clint’s hand, and Clint made himself shut up.

“I thought you were just putting up with me,” he said. “Until you could talk me into going to Steve.”

Clint wanted so badly to play it off with a joke and escape as fast as possible to have a mental breakdown in the bathroom, but he couldn’t do that to Bucky, not when he so clearly needed reassurance that he was a guy worth knowing for his own merits.

“Nah, I don’t have the long-range planning skills for that,” he said. “I just enjoy having you around.” 

Oh god, there was no way Bucky wasn’t going to work this out. Clint was pushing too much again and Bucky was going to get his own place, take Alpine, and Clint would never see either of them again. 

“And it made Alpine happy,” he added, with some desperation.

Bucky glanced down at Alpine, then carefully lifted her with the hand that wasn’t still holding on to Clint’s, keeping him in place. He cradled her against his chest as he stood up, and Clint just watched it happen, feeling himself giving into the inevitability of losing this.

“I’m glad,” Bucky said, and for some reason he sounded just as dry-throated with nerves as Clint felt. “Because I really enjoy being here too. That’s one of the reasons I want to get my own place near here, because I don’t want to lose that by being all over the country instead.”

Bucky was still holding Clint’s hand and Clint was achingly aware that it was gentle enough to be a gesture of affection instead of a hold to keep him in place now. He found himself unable to find any words to respond with and just kept staring at Bucky’s face, waiting for whatever was coming next.

“And yeah, part of that was Alpine,” said Bucky, shifting Alpine higher in his arm so she was half-draped over his shoulder, sleepily kneading his shirt, “but you found her in that alleyway, and brought her home to where I could meet her,” he said. “That’s the most important thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

He was staring at Clint’s face with an intense look that Clint didn’t know how to interpret. He knew how he _wanted_ to interpret it, but for all the hope rising up in his chest at the continued warmth of Bucky’s hand in his, and the quiet intimacy of the moment, he couldn’t let himself believe it just yet.

“Steve punched you until you stop being brainwashed,” he pointed out.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “The idiot nearly let me kill him. He’s not getting any points for that.”

“Okay,” said Clint, because that seemed fair. “Well, then. You’re welcome.” He looked at Alpine, who looked as good as asleep, nestled against Bucky. “I’m gonna miss her,” he admitted, because there was nothing quite like being woken up by an insistent paw batting at his face because it was breakfast time, “but I can’t imagine a better home for her to go to than yours.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” said Bucky. “Clint, you’ve no idea how much you’ve helped me since we met, just how much impact everything you’ve given me has made. I don’t want to ruin that by pushing too much.”

Clint couldn’t stop himself from laughing but it came out as a weird choked noise. “I keep telling myself _I’m_ pushing too much,” he said. “Taking you out to dinner-”

“That was great,” said Bucky, and his hand squeezed around Clint’s. Clint couldn’t help noticing that for all Bucky’s tension, his arm holding Alpine was still gentle. “You weren’t pushing too much, that was exactly right.” He hesitated, then added, in a low voice, “Would I be pushing if I kissed you right now?”

He looked terrified as he said it, his hand tightening around Clint’s until it hurt.

“No,” said Clint, letting the word fall out softly into the quiet of the night. “That wouldn’t even be close to too much.”

Bucky’s eyes widened and he let out a shaky breath, then he stepped in and kissed Clint without any further hesitation, Alpine still cradled between them as their lips pressed together.

It wasn’t a deep kiss, but it didn’t need to be, not when just the brush of their lips felt so electric. Clint drew in a shocked breath as the realisation that this was actually happening, that Bucky wanted this just as much as he did, then let go of Bucky’s hand so he could hold on to Bucky’s waist instead, pulling him in closer for another kiss.

The move squashed Alpine between them and she let out a sleepy complaint.

“Shit, sorry sweetheart,” muttered Bucky, pulling away.

Clint just stared at him, trying to get his brain to work properly again, as Bucky turned to set Alpine down on the sofa, where she grumpily cuddled in next to Lucky and then went back to sleep. Bucky didn’t pause to watch her as he usually did, he just turned right back around and kissed Clint again, taking hold of his face with both hands and pulling him into a long, thorough exploration of his mouth that Clint was more than happy to surrender to. He slid both his arms around Bucky’s waist, holding him and his ridiculous hoodie close just like he’d been longing to.

Bucky relaxed into him exactly how Clint had hoped he would, until it seemed to make more sense for them to settle on the sofa together, pressing close to each other in the small space that the animals had left when they sprawled out to sleep. Clint couldn’t seem to stop kissing Bucky, long, slow kisses that didn’t feel like they were building to anything more urgent, but were completely satisfying on their own.

It was a long time before they managed to separate long enough to catch their breaths and exchange more than a handful of words.

“Jesus,” said Bucky, pressing his forehead against Clint’s. “Can’t believe I forgot how good doing that is.”

Clint snorted. “I’m happy to remind you any time.”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” said Bucky, giving Clint a teasing smile that meant he just had to kiss him again.

“Stay here,” Clint said when they next paused. “Bucky, stay here with me. Don’t bother getting your own place.”

Bucky hesitated, his eyes darting over Clint’s face for a moment as Clint held his breath, wondering if he was pushing too much now.

“Yeah, okay,” said Bucky, quietly. “I guess Alpine’s all settled, it would be a shame to move her.”

Clint could feel his face light up, and he moved back in for another kiss, joy running through his veins.

****

They didn’t make it to get pancakes the next morning. They did eventually stop kissing and go to bed, and Clint managed to talk Bucky into sharing his bed. All they did in it was a brief goodnight kiss before turning the lights out, which was when they realised the sun had come up while they’d been distracted.

Bucky never seemed to sleep much but when Clint woke up hours later, he was still there, sitting up next to Clint and, of course, playing with Alpine.

“I fed them both, and took Lucky out for a walk,” he said once Clint had put his hearing aids in. “As it seemed like you weren’t going to wake up for that.”

Clint shrugged. “They’da woken me up if they’d got desperate.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at him, then hesitated for a moment before leaning down to press a soft kiss against Clint’s mouth. Clint just beamed at him, letting all the happiness that had felt unreal in the pre-dawn light rush through him.

“This is going to be great.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky and kissed him again.

Alpine let out a loud meow of protest at Bucky’s distraction and he let out a silent huff of amusement, then turned his attention back to her.

“I’m always going to come second to a cat,” Clint realised as he sat up.

Bucky shrugged, not looking at all apologetic. “You’re pretty cute, but she’s even cuter.”

Clint guessed he could learn to live with that. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known going into this what Bucky’s priorities were.

And Alpine was the reason that Bucky was sitting in bed beside Clint right now, rather than still just creeping in and out in the middle of the night while Clint slept. Clint reckoned he owed her a lot for that.


End file.
